Abstract: Transport phenomena on a quantum scale appear in a variety of systems,
ranging from photosynthetic complexes to engineered quantum devices. It has
been predicted that the efficiency of quantum transport can be enhanced through
dynamic interaction between the system and a noisy environment. We report the
first experimental demonstration of such environment-assisted quantum
transport, using an engineered network of laser-written waveguides, with
relative energies and inter-waveguide couplings tailored to yield the desired
Hamiltonian. Controllable decoherence is simulated via broadening the bandwidth
of the input illumination, yielding a significant increase in transport
efficiency relative to the narrowband case. We show integrated optics to be
suitable for simulating specific target Hamiltonians as well as open quantum
systems with controllable loss and decoherence.